The Giant that Eats Ants: I

I’ve just returned from the South Pantanal in Brazil, my second visit. My first visit was ten years ago, to the North Pantanal, long before I had a blog. Both trips were quite magical, and I’ll show you some of what I saw.

I’m starting with the animal I most wanted to see on this trip, because it is the one I didn’t see last time.. the Giant Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla. For me it has almost mythical status. As a child, I read and re-read Gerald Durrell’s 1954 book Three Singles to Adventure, in which he chases a giant anteater across the pampas, trying to lasso it. So now I am happy.

These animals are huge, up to 8 feet long and 100lbs. They are 1/3 head, 1/3 body, and 1/3 tail.

As you can see, this is not exactly wilderness. The Pantanal has for 200 years had vast cattle ranches, but some, including Baia das Pedras, are now devoting much of their effort to conservation. The idea is to make a mixed model viable, cows and wildlife too. And since cows and deer don’t eat ants (or anteaters) , and anteaters don’t eat cows and can usually find their way through the local fences, it works. (Jaguars are more complicated, for another day.) We saw this one from very far off, and to reach it we walked through still-flooded fields in knee deep water in our hiking boots. It was worth every squelching step.

Here is a close up of the remarkable head, which houses a 2-foot long tongue, but no teeth.

They have three huge claws on the front foot, for ripping apart termite mounds. They are very hard to see in the long grass, but you can glimpse them here if you look carefully, at bottom right. .

You have probably also noticed that when you look at one of these creatures it is remarkably hard to tell what you are looking AT. Their odd shape, coupled with the stripes, creates a very confusing image. They emerge into the grasslands from concealment in small above-water hummocks of trees and bromeliads :

and forage for ants.

They conduct commando raids: fast in, and fast out, before the soldier ants counter-attack. If they do, they use their front feet to swipe them off:

The best is yet to come, but with great restraint I will wait for my next blog, and so must you.

PS They are related to the Three-toed Sloth, something else I have never seen..